


third degree

by orphan_account



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: F/M, this is.....so short and so Extra lmao sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-03
Updated: 2017-02-03
Packaged: 2018-09-21 20:25:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9564926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: "When Eliza told him that she hoped that he burned, well.  Well.  Alexander didn’t think it would be quite like this."In which Eliza's wish comes true.





	

When Eliza told him that she hoped that he burned, well. Well. Alexander didn’t think it would be quite like this.

She’d said that to him in a low voice, the night of, months ago. Somehow, that voice was more heartbreaking than if she’d cried, if she’d yelled, if she’d have done anything, anything else. But no, she’d stood from the fireplace, wiped the soot and the charred remains of her letters off her fingers, and looked him in the eyes.

“I hope that you burn.”

And she’d walked out of his life.

Not literally, of course. She’s too good - Saint Eliza, he can almost hear her sisters teasing - to walk out on the family, on the life that she’d spent seventeen years building. Of course she’d stayed.

Their shared presence in the house makes him feel like half a ghost, unsure of his place. Alex drifts through the hallways lined with physical evidence of their life together, their family pictures, filled with smiles and laughter and kisses, and feels as if they’re from another person’s life. He second guesses every move around the house. Should he help his children with their homework? Fold the laundry? Do the dishes? He fills in the gaps when Eliza’s not around, and is careful not to occupy the same space as her whenever possible, lest the air crackle with the tension of a thousand things left unsaid.

Just last week, he and Eliza had both responded to a wailing William at 3 a.m., and they’d just stood there for a few moments, staring, until Eliza rushed to their son’s crib, scooped him up, turned her back to her husband, and that had been that.

And if Alexander had thought that the tension had been bad then, well. It’s nothing compared to now.

He’d been taking advantage of the spare moment of quiet - Will had just gone down for a nap, the children were at school, and Eliza had gone to lunch with her sisters - to get some work done for once, perhaps read over some case files or harass Jefferson for no reason. When he went to tie back his hair - it was getting even longer these days without his wife to cut it - he’d found himself missing a hair tie.

After a slight ransacking of his office and a few muttered swears, he remembered that he usually kept some on the top of his dresser in his - no, Eliza’s - bedroom. And he’d waltzed right in, thinking that his wife was out.

And that was how he ended up in his - Eliza’s - bedroom, with none other than Eliza herself, clearly fresh from the shower, wrapped in nothing but a towel.

His heart stops.

In the middle of everything she’s had to struggle with, of a very public sex scandal and a new baby and a sorry excuse for a husband, Alexander doesn’t know how his wife manages to be so beautiful.

She doesn’t notice his presence yet, somehow, and so she’s relaxed, her posture at ease as she peruses the contents of her dresser drawers. Her hair, tousled but still wet, drips water down the delicate slope of her shoulder blades and onto the pale blue towel. Her face is mostly hidden from him, but he can make out her eyelashes, the shape of her nose, the motion of her lip as she bites it in concentration, and he feels like this is it, this is how he’s going to die, just staring at his lonely, lovely, scorned wife and suddenly feeling like he’s aflame, God, how he aches, how he burns–

She turns around.

He hasn’t been fixed with her gaze in weeks, if that, and even if she’s looking at him with a mixture of confusion and anger and everything that she hasn’t and will never say to him, Alexander will never tire of looking at her eyes.

He snaps out of it to realize that she’s waiting for him to explain himself. He doesn’t miss the way she wraps the towel a little tighter around herself, the way her shoulders creep towards her ears as the tension grows.

“I- I just… thought you were out,” Alex offers lamely.

Eliza blinks. “I came back,” she responds icily after a moment.

Alex swallows. “I’ll just go.”

Eliza still hasn’t moved by the time he backs out of the room and carefully, quietly shuts the door.

Alex stumbles back to his office, his pants suddenly uncomfortably tight, feeling raw and oversensitive, like he’s been held to a flame for too long. He sits in his office, staring at his case files for half a moment, before muttering a curse under his breath and taking himself in his hand in an attempt to douse the flames, and when he comes all too quickly it’s with his wife’s name on his lips.

**Author's Note:**

> s/o to genius lyrics for this one: https://genius.com/7904849
> 
> first time posting so comments/kudos are v much appreciated <3


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